Ready Kids › Road Badge › Badge 6 › Lesson 6.3
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Passengers
Say why one rider per machine is the rule, say what Illinois law allows an under-18 rider to carry from 2027, and have the sentence ready for the car park.
1Look
Two people, one machine
Two on one
A rider standing on the pedals of an e-bike at the top of a driveway with a second person sitting sideways on the rear rack, feet held out clear of the wheel.
Nobody in that picture is being stupid. It is one of the most ordinary things you will ever be asked to do on a machine like this, which is exactly why it is worth having decided in advance.
2The idea
What the paediatricians actually say
The advice from the American Academy of Pediatrics is short: discourage children from taking passengers on the back of an e-bike. The same body recommends one rider per vehicle as a household and school policy, rather than as a judgement call made per ride.
That is a policy rather than a reflex, and there is a reason for putting it that way. A policy is something you can say once, at home, and then repeat in a car park without having to rebuild the argument in front of two people who want a lift.
3The idea
Nobody can hand you a number for this one
This course does not do statistics it cannot source, so here is the honest version. There is no paediatric injury figure that isolates riding double as the cause. It has not been separated out from everything else that goes wrong. Anybody quoting you one is inventing it.
What that means is that the argument for this rule is not a number, and it does not need to be. It is the machine, the law, and the fact that everything you measured about your own riding you measured alone.
4The idea
Everything you measured, you measured on your own
Go back through the badge. The stop on the marked line, the distance you stepped out with cones at two speeds, the walking-pace turn with your head up, the setting off at the lowest assist level. Every one of those numbers is yours, on your machine, with only you on it.
Put a second person on and none of those figures belong to you any more, and you do not know what the new ones are. The machine was already 30 to 60 pounds before either of you sat on it, and the brakes on these already wear faster than the ones you grew up with.
5Say it
The sentence for the car park
Say it out loud, in your normal voice
“One rider on this. I'll walk it with you.”
The second half is what makes it work, because it turns a refusal into a plan. You will need this one in front of somebody who has already started walking towards the rack, so have it made up before you get there.
6Decide
It is dark, your friend's ride has fallen through, and it is a mile home.
Pick one to carry on.
7The idea
And from 2027, it is also the law
Illinois Public Act 104-0854 takes effect on 1 January 2027. An operator under 18 may not carry a passenger at all, unless that passenger is their sibling, stepsibling, child or stepchild. There is no clause about how short the trip is or how well you ride.
The same act lets police impound the machine, which is the part riders find out about last. Impounded means it goes away on a truck, and a parent or guardian is the person who gets it back, not you.
8Build it
Who is allowed on the back
Who counts
Eight people to drag onto or away from the rear rack of a machine ridden by a 16-year-old: a younger sister, a stepbrother, a best friend, a cousin, a neighbour, a teammate, a friend's little brother, a stepsister. Each drop shows whether the 2027 rule allows it and why.
Two of the eight are allowed. The list is shorter than most riders assume, and cousins and best friends are not on it.
9Find them
Which of these are true about carrying somebody?
Tap the ones that count.
Find all 3.
10Do it
Before you leave this page
With the motor off, push your machine up the drive by the bars, the way you did in Badge 1. Then get somebody to sit on it and push it exactly the same distance again. That is what a passenger is, and you will have the whole answer in your arms in about four seconds.
Tick it when you have done it.
Lesson done.
One rider per machine. And under 18 in Illinois, the only passenger allowed is a sibling, stepsibling, child or stepchild.
Next lesson: Wheelies, stunts and the middle of the road